A Sociopsychological Assessment of Attitude toward Physical Activity in Champion Athletes

Abstract

This study examined the attitudes toward physical activity of a certain selected group of male and female championship athletes (N = 136) representing 10 different sports events. An attitude inventory, containing 48 response items, and based on a subdomain conceptual framework developed by Kenyon, was administered to each athlete. Each respondent was required to rate the meaning each subdomain concept had for him with respect to his attitude toward physical activity. This rating was accomplished through a series of eight descriptive semantic differential scales each based on a seven-alternative Likert-type attitude statement format. The six subdomains contained in the inventory were physical activity as a social experience, as health and fitness, as the pursuit of vertigo, as an aesthetic experience, as catharsis, and as an ascetic experience. Results indicated that the male and female athletes in this study were remarkably similar in their attitudes, that the strongest attitude of the athletes toward physical activity was as an aesthetic experience, and that physical activity as an ascetic experience held the least meaning for the total group.